Short Course B Champs

This past Saturday and Sunday, Natalie swam in five events for the B Championships. I don't really take pictures of her swimming anymore, since I have so many of those, so I ended up taking pictures of all of us waiting. There was a lot of waiting. There were also a LOT of people there, as you can probably see in the background of this first picture.

On Saturday morning, Patrick brought Eric with him to the meet since there would not be anyone at home. Anthony brought Alex to school so his school soccer team could go to the south side of town for a tournament. That gave them some time to stop by one of Anthony's old haunts, Benny's Tacos, for breakfast.

Natalie had two races on Saturday morning. She swam the first event at about 0830 and the second at about 0930, so luckily that meant that we could go home early, since we had to return in the afternoon for two more events. Her results for Saturday morning are as follows:

Event 1--100 yard IM--Seed Time 1:21.53--Time today 1:21.07--Difference -0.46
Event 5--200 yard Free--Seed Time 2:37.26--Time today 2:41.78--Difference +4.52

Patrick went to Alex's two soccer games on Saturday (one at 12:00 and one at 4:30), despite having a really bad problem with allergies. Alex actually got to play, which is not the usual case with freshman, so we thought that was a good thing. Anthony came to the Saturday afternoon session with us, so Patrick missed those races so he could watch Alex's game and then pick him up.

Eric is acting a little goofy in this second picture. I was charging my iPad and he didn't want to play on the old iPad, so he kept himself busy trying to rest his legs on Anthony. Because he was doing that, Natalie decided to rest her feet on her friend Ally's legs. She didn't want me to take a picture of her feet, though, so she asked Ally to put her feet on Natalie instead. I love that the two girls look happy in this photo even though most of the time they were far from smiling. Ally is mostly serious anyway, and Natalie was not happy with any of her races on Saturday.

Natalie's two Saturday evening races were at about 6pm and 7:30pm. Her friend Ally had to swim even later than that, but we couldn't stay because we really needed to get Natalie and Eric to bed. Natalie's results for Saturday evening are as follows:

Event 35--100 yard Free--Seed Time 1:09.43--Time today--1:10.52--Difference +1.09
Event 45--100 yard Fly--Seed Time 1:23.94--Time today--1:22.69--Difference -1.25

She really didn't do badly at all, but in her mind she still wants to drop time each time she races, and she was so close to a BB time for the 100 yard Free that adding time meant she wasn't going to get that BB time. She even got some new cool red and black goggles, but that didn't help her confidence or her performance.

Natalie didn't have to race until 1030 on Sunday morning, but she came early to support her friend Ally, who swam in the first event. Ally's mom had to go pick up her other daughter, so Ally stayed with us to support Natalie for her one race on Sunday. Natalie's seed time for the 200 IM was 2:53.76. Her time today was 2:57.99 for a difference of +4.23. She was not happy at all, but having her friend there really helped.

Ally's mom Elana and I joked with each other about how Ally will smile for me even when she won't smile for Elana. The same thing was true for Natalie with Elana. It's a good thing we were there for each other's daughters! It's all a growing process and Natalie is getting lots of experience. Patrick and I are super proud of her and her dedication at such a young age. Next step--BB Championships in two weeks.